RomanPunks is a retrofuturistic, cyberpunk derivative world-building project inspired by fine art, history and the cryptopunk movement.
A total of 1,000 RomanPunk characters have been frozen in time and minted as Non Fungible Tokens (NFTs) on the Ethereum, WAX, Polygon and Algorand blockchains.
RomanPunk characters are comprised of commoners and famous individuals based on Roman history, art history and pop culture.
The basis for RomanPunk lore and backstories is exhaustively researched by history/sci-fi buff and co-founder, Punktavian.
All images are drawn by hand by woman artist and co-founder, Cleopunktra, without the aid of AI or generative tools.
RomanPunks came into existence through early minting on OpenSea, promoting on Twitter and building a Discord community through giveaways and engagement. The idea of a cyberpunk-derivative ‘RomanPunk’ theme was in our heads for years, but it was the success of the Cryptopunks that became the catalyst for project conception and launch.
After a hard working first 60 days spent networking and attracting new collectors to RomanPunks, our community had begun to flourish and sales increased. We began to offer our collectors an opportunity to battle their NFTs in a tournament bracket powered by dice rolls.
Encouraged by the tight knit community and the carbon-neutral blockchain with lightning fast and low cost transactions, we launched 'romanpunksio' collection on WAX Blockchain as the first step to expand the backstories of our RomanPunk characters and the baseline for future development of a card game.
RomanPunks integrated with Chainlink Labs to utilize VRF (Verified Randomness Function) to host a giveaway raffle for our holders. We developed a smart contract on Ethereum which guarantees true random number selection on chain and can be used for a wide range of functions that require random selection.
After much anticipation in the community, we released our first WAX NFT card 'pack' through the Neftyblocks platform, which sold out in less than a week.
We launched our Twitch channel and begun building an audience by offering numerous giveaways of WAX NFTs from our collection, as well as giving participants a chance to win RomanPunk ETH NFT airdrops for taking top spot at the end of the 'season'.
As firm believers in a metaverse future and land owners in The Sandbox, we undertook to build the RomanPunk Colosseum on 1x1 land and entered our experience "Gladiator Bloodsport" into a GameJam contest. We will continue to build the Colosseum into a PVP arena and social hub once The Sandbox offers creators the ability to do so.
Thanks to the user friendly tools offered by NeftyBlocks, we launched a comprehensive blending system on WAX, allowing our collectors to blend the common NFTs they earn in our Discord RPG up into Legendary famous NFTs through the use of blending 'coins' that can also be earned on the Discord as reward for helping to promote the RomanPunks project.
We launched the VX collection on Polygon. Each owner of an ETH NFT gets their voxel equivalent airdropped to them, and these NFTs can be redeemed for official NFTs on The Sandbox Marketplace once available.
All 1,000 original, unique 1:1 RomanPunk characters hand drawn by Cleopunktra and minted on OpenSea.
The RomanPunk WAX NFT Trading Card Fighter Pack Series II consists of 3 NFTs randomly selected from over 236 characters.
Upcoming plans for RomanPunks include:
Below is a comprehensive and searchable directory of all 1,000 RomanPunk Characters.
Born 145 BC in Sinope, Zoi and her brother Pythodoris were servants of Pluto, God of the Underworld, who fought for Mithridates the Great, were slain by the Romans and sent to purgatory where they are forced to fight an endless battle against impossible odds.
Born 199 BC in Pella, Philip was enslaved by the Romans after losing the Third Macedonian War, then forced to fight as a gladiator for the entertainment of the masses. However, at the moment of glorious death in battle, his consciousness was ‘freejacked’ by time-traffickers to the 23rd century AD Britannia where he battles in a cloned body for the Interdimensional Cybergladiator League (ICL) on a squad sponsored by the Algorand Foundation, known as the AlgoSaxons.
Born 2172 AD in Petra, Salim is an itinerant lounge lizard now anchored to the tiki bar at Neo-Carthage’s Atlanta Hotel after gambling away his life savings and falling into crippling debt with the Red Sands Syndicate. Manipulated by Zalika Malika to spy on the governor and his associates, his drunkenness and ineptitude soon render him a liability, forcing him to flee underground to escape both the syndicate and the governor’s wrath. Eventually, he stumbles into the hands of the rebels, who pity his sorry state but recognize how his blunders can create unforeseen opportunities.
Born in 109 BC in Coracesium, Calypso was an infamous pirate queen who wreaked havoc on Roman shipping until she was captured by Pompey and sentenced to fight in the gladiator pits of Rome.
Born in 279 BC in Terme, at a young age Babe fell in love with Remigius, a dimension hopping rube from the 20th century AD. Soon tiring of the domestic lifestyle, she fled to the 28th century to join the Amazonian sisterhood of cybergladiators.
Born in 113 BC in Philippopolis, Seuthes fought with Spartacus in the Third Servile War, lost and was crucified by the Romans. His dying body was abducted off the cross by aliens, who forced him to fight as a cybergladiator for eternity.
Born 333 AD in Nemausus, Erana transformed her estate into a beacon of hope following a devastating Vandal invasion that claimed her sight and her first husband. Alongside her second husband, former stablemaster and freed slave, she founded the Institute for the Blind and Animal Rehabilitation where those robbed of their vision walk the road to recovery by tending to orphaned and wounded animals.
Born in 131 BC in Jutland, Storm was a blacksmith in the disastrous war against the Roman forces of Gaius Marius. After their defeat, his wife, Oda, was enslaved as Marius’ concubine and he was cast into a dimensional portal to serve as a gladiator in a parallel universe of a Roman atomic age.
Born 1998 in Dyrrachium, Dardana is a superstar singer who was abducted by time traffickers and forced to perform in Diocletian’s palace as the Emperor’s personal chanteuse.
Born 116 AD in Lugdunum, Flavia is an Antonine heiress turned flamenco dancer slash jewel thief who travels across time and space to perform at grand balls and pilfer / pickpocket at glitzy afterparties, fencing her stolen loot on the interdimensional black market.
Born in 185 BC in Alexandria, Raad is a dimension-hopping temple guard equipped with high tech defensive equipment to protect the treasures of the pharaohs from time looters and tourists.
Born in 507 AD in the shadow of Carthage, Zeno is celebrated not for valour in battle but for his deft avoidance of it. A slacker and draft dodger, he shirked military duties, only to be caught in the Byzantine tide that brutally sacked his city. Seized by Belisarius’s legions, he was dispatched to the endless hemp fields of North Africa, a punishment he secretly relishes.
Born in 260 AD in Palmyra, Elysia is the daughter of a wealthy priest of Sol Invictus and was advisor to Queen Zenobia. She rose to become a preeminent chronocartographer, a specialized navigator who maps the pathways between dimensions. Upon Aurelian’s invasion, Elysia charmed the emperor, offering her temporal services to immortalize him through time. But hubris brought his end, as a time assassin intervened to stop Aurelian’s power grab.
Born 111 BC in Coracesium, Iskra is an ex-pirate turned seamstress/tattooist who went to 1981 AD through an interdimensional portal at the Temple of Tarsus to travel as a groupie for the thrash metal band, Pontifex Maximus.
Born 2488 AD in Ancyra, Draven comes from a long line of notorious highfalutin slave traders. He uses advanced telescopic lenses to scout his victims interdimensionally, then dispatches time traffickers through a portal to kidnap them as slaves for his base entertainment empire of lewd karaoke clubs, casinos, and virtual brothels in 26th century AD Neo-Byzantium. Charismatic yet ruthless, Draven’s influence extends back to ancient Galatia, long a haven for the effete elite, including covert colonialist cyborgs.
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romanpunks@protonmail.ch
Registered in Ontario, Canada
